Yankee Stadium
Home of the New York Yankees since 2009 (the current building — the original 1923 stadium stood across the street). A game here, even for a non-baseball fan, is a genuine slice of American sporting culture, and tickets can be found affordably for regular-season games well below Broadway-show prices.
The New York Botanical Garden
250 acres, including one of the last remaining tracts of the original forest that covered New York before European settlement. The seasonal orchid show and the conservatory are worth planning a visit around specifically, not just wandering into.
The Bronx Zoo
One of the largest metropolitan zoos in the US by area, run by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Genuinely different in scale and ambition from a typical city zoo — budget most of a day if you want to see it properly.
Hip-hop's birthplace
1520 Sedgwick Avenue, in the South Bronx, is widely credited as the site of the first hip-hop DJ set in 1973, and the borough's role in the genre's origin is a real point of civic pride, marked by a growing set of cultural sites and murals across the South Bronx.
Arthur Avenue
The Bronx's "Little Italy" — and by most honest accounts, a more authentic, less tourist-oriented Italian food district than Manhattan's own Little Italy at this point. Salumerias, bakeries, and red-sauce restaurants that have run for generations. Read the full Arthur Avenue guide →
The Grand Concourse & South Bronx
The Grand Concourse is a four-mile Art Deco boulevard that was once the most desirable address in the outer boroughs — the buildings are still standing and worth seeing. The South Bronx is where hip-hop was born in 1973 and where Mott Haven's new gallery scene is now attracting attention alongside complex questions about displacement.